Music: Cattaneo and McDermott to share double bill in Plymouth

Thursday

Mar 1, 2018 at 3:45 PM

Susan Cattaneo and Chuck McDermott both released critically acclaimed albums last year, and both could easily fit under the expansive Americana umbrella.

As things worked out, neither artist had a chance to celebrate their album with a South Shore CD Release show, which is why tonight’s double-bill at The Spire Center in Plymouth is such an event. Both Cattaneo and McDermott, and their respective bands, will perform music from their last albums, and more, starting at 8 p.m.

But Cattaneo and McDermott have something more in common, and that is a determination to write their music the way they want to, regardless of styles or trends. Cattaneo is a veteran of the Nashville country music songwriting system, and she teaches students at Berklee College of Music, but her style is much more singular, rock oriented, but with touches of folk and country. McDermott, whose first notice in the Boston area came four decades ago when he fronted the band Wheatstraw, is most often considered a country-rocker, yet his music, especially in later years, has become more intricate and sophisticated, even as it remained as captivating as ever.

We caught up with both songwriters this week, in separate interviews to talk about their songwriting, and the history behind it, and how they view their spots in the musical firmament.

“As a writer, I spent a lot of years writing for the Nashville scene,” said Cattaneo, from her Medford home. “In that situation, there’s a certain lexicon, a glossary of terms you operate with. I wasn’t writing for myself. On this last album, and the one before it, I was able to write for myself, what I wanted to say. There’s a discipline about what you want to write about, as far as aesthetically how you want to do it. You disguise some things and some people, but mostly I write from my own experience.”

“What makes a good song? To me it boils down to ‘Can I relate to it?’” Cattaneo said. “I have a deep connection to Nashville, but for me, the way their pop music is going there’s just not enough humanity in there for me. That’s why it’s so exciting for me to be able to communicate with this new music of mine. For myself, I’m trying to create material people can really connect with. Sometimes I do find myself struggling, and it can be almost a relief to do co-writes. In that case, you’re kind of servicing someone else, and you can toss ideas around more easily together.”

How does a veteran songsmith like this nurture student songwriters at Berklee?

“As an educator I realize you just can’t teach someone talent,” said Cattaneo. “But you can teach someone the tools they need, the approaches they can use to get to a song. Your goal is to show them as many ways as possible to get to a song, and if they do have the talent, hopefully they can use one of those pathways to bring the song out.”

Cattaneo’s backing band will include Swinging Steak Jamie Walker on guitar, multi-instrumentalist Jimmy Ryan, Michael Bean on pedal steel, Richard Gates on bass and Andrew Jones on drums. In addition to having copies of last year's excellent "The Hammer and The Heart" album available, Cattaneo is also releasing a "Live at the Spire" concert CD she recorded last year. Obviously the rapid changes in the music industry make forging a career, especially one outside the easy definitions of the pop charts, difficult.

“There are advantages and disadvantages to the new world,” said Cattaneo, who publishes and releases her music under her own Jersey Girl Music rubric. “Today everybody with a computer can release music, and as a result there is so much out there it can be daunting. But, if you can create a niche for yourself, you can carve out a piece of the pie. You can develop your own smaller, but devoted, fan base, and they’ll know you better than ever, through your website and so on. “

“I don’t envy my Berklee students graduating now, because there is no clear track to success in the music business now,” Cattaneo added. “But I am really grateful any time people come out to a show of mine, because there are so many entertainment alternatives today. But I believe the live music experience cannot be duplicated, and I love that people will still come out to hear you, whether the weather is good or bad.”

What’s the connection between Cattaneo and McDermott?

“I first met Chuck at a picnic when we were both not actively in music,” Cattaneo explained. “We met again some years later, when I saw Chuck playing a guitar at this party. I asked if I could sing with him, and three hours later we hadn’t talked to anyone at that party, but we’d covered the entire Emmylou Harris/Gram Parsons collection. We’ve been friends ever since.”

McDermott, a Cohasset resident, was at the forefront of country-rock in Boston, when Wheatstraw, John Lincoln Wright’s Sour Mash Boys, Angelo Petraglia and The Immortals, and Laurie Sargent’s Face to Face were among the vanguard of what we’d now call Americana. But McDermott, a Yale graduate, stepped away from the musical merry-go-round, and carved out a wide-ranging career pursuing his passion for the environment and energy issues, including trying to implement those ideas politically, for years.

McDermott’s album “Gin and Rosewater” was not just a terrific piece of work, it was an announcement that he was back, ready to express himself through music once again.

“Coming back from my hiatus was a fascinating experience,” McDermott mused. “I had never stopped writing songs, but my output was less regular, than when songwriting had been a big part of my job. I’ve spent the past two years re-focusing in, and I’ve found that now I have a lot more to talk about than I did in my twenties. After a certain point, you don’t want to write another song like those you wrote in your twenties. I’ve been married, raised two kids, been divorced, remarried, and lost both parents. I’ve seen a lot of the world, some really good times, and some tragedies. So I have found I have a lot more to draw on when I write a song now.”

“My other profession, in the energy and environmental world, pops up now and then in my writing,” McDermott noted. “I really enjoy realizing it can all be integrated. But it’s still fun to write a tune that’s just a fun rocker, too. Discovering all these new aspects has been a really welcome side of my return.”

We chatted about the "good old days," when the original WBCN might delight Boston rock fans by playing a Wheatstraw tune, followed by Miles Davis, followed by Jeff Beck, followed by Fairport Convention, followed by Led Zeppelin. Somehow it all worked and nobody quibbled about genres.

“It’s 100 percent different now,” said McDermott. “Without radio for building an audience, it’s very challenging. Those were the glory days of FM radio. With today’s Internet and streaming services, you can find anything — but there’s SO much out there, and how do you find it? There’s no revenue in recorded music now, and labels aren’t interested unless you’re Taylor Swift. You just try to keep putting stuff out there, and hope your audience is expanding in concentric circles, but you have to admit it is not an instant gratification thing.”

“At this stage of my life, I’m writing and playing music again because I love it,” McDermott said. “I’m not a golfer, and this is how I love to spend my time. We still have world-class players in Boston, like guitarist Kevin Barry in my band. To be able to play my body of work live, in a beautiful facility like the Spire Center, attractive visually as well as with a great sound system, is what it’s all about. For me, it’s an absolute joy to be able to play for people in places like this, and that’s why I’m back.”